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>SELECTED: “He is correct. I would speak further, but I am afraid I cannot tarry.” The last of the pilgrims are passing the checkpoint now, you were correct in assuming that Orin was at the rear. Jess however is nowhere to be seen. You bid your goodbyes as politely as you are able, but you will not keep the pilgrims waiting to make conversation with a slaveowner. [Haughty]
<span class="mu-i">“He is correct.”</span> You affirm, keeping your tone polite but your words short. You refrain from being to personable with the young bilingual slave, doubtless doing so would only raise her masters ire and risk being taken out on her later. <span class="mu-i">“I would speak further, but I am afraid I cannot tarry.”</span>
<span class="mu-i">“The accommodating Kyrios understands, and wishes you on your way.”</span> The Stratiokas officer offers his own polite nod before stepping away as the slave girl concludes her translation. <span class="mu-i">“The Exalted Kyria Eustace will be informed of your arrival, honoured exoria.”</span>
An entirely innocuous statement in and of itself, but one that nonetheless causes you a tinge of concern. You remember well the Cathagi warrior woman in the wake of the battle on the Kingsroad, and the in particular the way she stared at you. Perhaps your memory of the encounter is warped from time and circumstance, but if forced you would describe that look as similar to a contestant valuing up a prize to be won.
As you and the pilgrims continue to follow Brother Rousseau confident stride through the city you struggle to take in anything you see. There is so much activity, so many faces, so many variations between the clothing and creeds that brush by the procession in these narrow winding streets. It is clear that Nova Cathagi has virtually nothing approaching cultural uniformity, so much so that you have real difficulty discerning who is a local and who is a foreigner. Many of the former appear to adopt some or all of the fashions of the other, or vice versa, to the point that retaining one’s own traditional apparel is a fashion statement of itself. But this melting pot of cultural affectations on display is hardly the strangest exhibit you are confronted with.
You pass a row of chanting shaven headed men sitting cross-legged on the side of the street. They are each of them as naked as the day they were born and covered head-to-toe in white chalk so you could not honestly say what kingdom they hail from. Their chanting, or rather manic chattering, seems at once both completely discordant and somehow eerily in sync. You avert your eyes from the barbarity, and raise the volume of your own unnerving recitation of the psalms in an effort to drown them out.
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